Anyone Notice That Sites Don't Have To Rely On Google So Much For Traffic Any More?

from the the-value-of-earned-links dept

One of the driving forces behind some of the legal attacks on Google is that Google is the defacto monopoly on being found online. We've heard over and over again a claim along the lines of "if you're not in Google, you're not online." And there may be some truth in that statement for many websites, but the rise of the social web appears to certainly be decreasing the reliance on Google for "being found." Nearly two years ago, we wrote about the increasing value of "earned" or "passed" links or media. That is, with social communications platforms like Facebook and Twitter, people are promoting various websites themselves and others are discovering them not because of Google, but because their friends, families and colleagues are recommending them.

I have to admit that I was still a little skeptical of how big this would really be, but in the last year (and especially the last six months), I've really changed my mind -- and that's because we're seeing evidence of it directly. For years, our largest referrer every single day was Google. It wasn't even close. Every day, people came from Google (sometimes via searches, sometimes via things like Google Reader or iGoogle), and it simply dominated how people found us. Yet, these days, it's quite rare to see Google as the top referrer to Techdirt on any given day. Instead, it seems that every day we get an onslaught of traffic from at least one (and sometimes more) social communications platforms: StumbleUpon, Reddit, Twitter and Facebook now regularly come in as our biggest referrers. Google still drives a lot of traffic, but our traffic has certainly become a lot more diversified.

And while those companies certainly are not "competitors" to Google in the traditional sense, when it comes to the question of "the only way to be found online is Google," I can say empirically that's simply not true for us.

Along those lines, however, I should note that the reason those social communications systems work is because of people who like what we have to say and want to share it. That doesn't work if your content sucks, so if your content sucks, you may still have to rely on Google (but, even then, part of what Google tries to do is make sure the sucky content gets dropped down as well -- so the best solution might be to not have sucky content).

Related to all this, as we head into a brief holiday break (we'll be back next week, don't worry), I wanted to thank everyone who makes this community so fun and dynamic -- and certainly the folks who made this story possible by regularly sharing our stories on those other platforms. That's mighty kind of you, and it is greatly appreciated.

Finally, again, related to all of this, we never seem to post about the different ways to follow us online, even though most of you have probably figured it out on your own already. Of course, we have an RSS feed, a Twitter feed and a Facebook page (which often fails to update for reasons not at all clear to us). We also have an email list that sends out copies of each of the previous day's posts early in the morning (US time) the following day. You can sign up for that by putting your email address in the box in the upper righthand corner of this page. Feel free to follow us (or not) however you prefer, and thanks for being a part of the community.

It was always foolish to rely on Google.

I've been a web programmer for nearly 20 years and I can attest the kids coming out into the working world, calling themselves web developers, have much, much growing up to do.

Every day, websites I frequent to see what these kids are up to always include an "SEO improvement" blog entry, as though it's absolutely necessary to score high on search engine results.

I've often challenged this mentality and am usually met with quite a bit of resistance, since my advice is "Build it, market it, and they will come." and their reply is "SEO enhancement is marketing."

While I can agree to a point, it's completely wrong. First of all, Google's algorithms are proprietary, and therefore, any SEO enhancement is speculation, at best. Secondly, everyone else is doing the same SEO enhancements, so it's basically moot.

I'm glad this article included many free tools web developers can use to truly market their next project. Although I personally don't use Twitter (nothing against it, just don't own a cell phone), I've seen its impact on many websites.

I'm also in 100% agreement good content makes or breaks a website and if those eyeballs aren't clicking withing moments of arriving, a dead web site is in the making.

Nice write up. Can't wait to see what the kids, who call themselves web developers, think about it.

PS: do note I know not every youngster falls into my generalization. I just wanted to save these tiring fingers a few keystrokes.

I normally follow you through the day via an igoogle plug in, but i do tend to repost everything interesting to facebook. Common courtesy to share important info. (besides it's better than the nutjob sites i see others sharing. At least you folks realize that unsourced news is just bloody gossip)

I guess I'm an odd sort. First thing is I never go to these social sites. I guess I value my privacy more than showing up.

I also don't comment on sites that require email or registration to post. In fact I no longer use email, so I never get spam. There are other ways around that, which also don't include IM.

Google is a very small part of my internet experience at best. Zilch is more often the rule than not.

Nor do I tend to view ads. There's just been too many iframe attacks and they are too annoying to reading and clear thinking.

So what it comes down to is that I find my way around by what I am interested in. Those blogs I go to, that have meat to them and food for thought, are also the ones that give sources to their topics.

In the long run I find more concisely what I seek going this way that if I actually were searching with an engine for it. There are some things that just won't show up in a search engine, no matter how you state the search term.

Re:

I don't mean this as a harsh criticism as such, but I have to wonder about people who claim these things...

"I guess I value my privacy more than showing up."

You don't need to log into Reddit to read the stories, and you don't have to give any personal information to Twitter in order to follow people. Social sites don't need any more personal information than you want to give them - one of my Facebook friends uses a fake name, no contact info other than a disposable webmail account and doesn't allow anyone to friend him that he doesn't know very well offline. But, it remains a great way to organise my social life in situations where my friends are online but not easily contactable via phone or other means (e.g. at work).

"In fact I no longer use email, so I never get spam."

That's a bit extreme, but whatever. You could be missing out on a lot by not allowing people to easily contact you online, and it definitely limits your options in other ways. Surely a disposable webmail account on a site with a decent spam filter would be more productive?

"So what it comes down to is that I find my way around by what I am interested in."

It seems funny that you're basically saying that you won't allow anybody you know personally to contact you easily online, and are essentially guided by a small group of bloggers (who probably get their sources by the methods you're avoiding well before they mention them to you).

Whatever you fancy, I guess, but it seems rather unwieldy and inaccurate to me.

"There are some things that just won't show up in a search engine, no matter how you state the search term."

There are also things that will never show up in the methods you're using, no matter how long you wait.

Thanks for not sucking :)

Your experience is shared by several other content sites I'm aware of. Google may want to call you to the stand to testify on their behalf next time someone takes them to task over visitor traffic issues ;)

Also, really do appreciate your thoughtful commentary on the various important issues taking place online and off. Even where I may not always agree, your perspectives are thought provoking and interesting. It's always a pleasure to share your posts w/others.

Re: Re: If only it wasn't for piracy

If it wasn't for the fact that Firefly was a pirate's favourite, and people actually paid to watch it, they wouldn't have cancelled Firefly. Blame the pirates.

Wow, not sure how a television show that played on Fox for 10 episodes, out of order, and was preempted a number of times by football and other events thus not giving it a chance to gain popularity despite a small but growing audience was cancelled because of pirates.

After all, everyone I know who loves Firefly (including myself) actually has two or three licensed copies of the show (one to keep, one to watch, and one to lend to others.) Speaking of which, I think someone borrowed my third copy and hasn't given it back yet...anyone here know where it went?

The question is how each of those sources get their traffic. Social networks and information networks get their source traffic from Google. Essentially, these other properties are just getting between you and google.

Re: Re: Re:

I wish people would learn how to use the site sometimes, it's not hard. Your post was written as though it was responding to the original article, not a comment in the thread.

Anyway, you still make no sense. Raul didn't make the claim that I was questioning ("Social networks and information networks get their source traffic from Google."), you did. Do you wish to supply a citation for your own claim, or is it just another of those unfounded assumptions that ACs like to make here?

Create a virtual machine that you can use to browse the internet and delete the virtual machine after, you can start a fresh copy everytime, but it is difficult for layman people to transfer data to and from it, also you need to get a GUI for it separately like Virtual Machine Manager or Qemu Launcher.

Make bit by bit copy of the state of the machine right after a fresh install and when everything its ok, you just make a copy and store it in a DVD-R and reinstall that every year or when problems arise, do you ever wonder how internet coffee shops maintain their machines virus free?, that is how, also get a bootable disc OS different from the OS on the machine so you can boot from that disc and inspect the files from a different OS that probably won't be vulnerable to any virus inside that filesystem so if you ever need to salvage some files from the disk before installing something over it that is the way to do it.

Regularly lately I see links in Slashot stories that link back here. Given the readership of Slashdot I can only assume this drives substantial traffic to this site. More often than not, though, the link is to talk about a story, first reported elsewhere and re-summarized here. The link and the Slashdot story do not refer to any additional commentary Techdirt makes. While Techdirt itself may yet link back to the originating report (often through several links to earlier Techdirt articles which I have to believe is also an SEO effort), it is nonetheless Techdirt that gets direct credit for reporting the story (and the resultant traffic) from a Slashdot reader's perspective.

This mutual-admiration society of blogs has formed a new core of Internet information middlemen. Techdirt and Slashdot occupy privileged positions in this new world of middlemen due in large part to their longevity and the inertia of popularity. "Fans" enable this by lazily linking stories where they first read them rather than where they originated, and the middlemen abet them by not rectifying this, and, in some cases, creating a maze of internal links obfuscating the origin of the information.

For a blog and a community that so often rails against and diminishes the contributions of (other) middlemen, I'm so often surprised at how well they are emulated.

Re:

I'm not sure you totally understand why 'we' generally appear not to like middlemen.

Generally, middlemen make a process less efficient.

This isn't always true. Middlemen, as wholesalers or retailers, came about because they WERE more efficient. Back then, and to an extent, still are today.

We couldn't, or had a hard time, buying directly from manufacturers. And even when we COULD, personal shipping costs might far outweigh the unit shipping cost of a retailer. And even then, the retailer advertises and hires retail employees, and does a whole bunch of things, instead of the manufacturer, which also made the process easier, and often times cheaper. Still does.

Generally, we like those middlemen. They make things easier and cheaper.

Now, let's look at music. What once was a scarce resource, (records), is now an 'infinite' resource, (1's and 0's). We hate middlemen there, because they don't do anything. And they cost money.
There are no shipping costs. the music is often its own advertisement, there is no need or use of hiring retail employees . . . middlemen, in music, just cost.

In Software, we see a similar story, most of the time. But, software fucks up, and is hard to understand at times, and sometimes the middleman, by providing support for a lot of programs and customers, actually ends up adding to the process. We like these middlemen, too, even though they also drive up the cost of the software.

You are falling prey to the availability heuristic, in that we never complain about middlemen who we like. Similarly, we never complain about bias that we like. (sidenote: Excellent essay on the subject of bias, and 'good bias': http://nancyfulda.livejournal.com/279392.html)

Now, let's look at TD and slashdot.
They cost nothing to us. Big plus there.
They aggregate news that interests us. Big plus there.
Slashdot notsomuch, but TD often provides additional commentary, or aggregates several news stories on the subjects into one article. Big plus.
The community. Go to the comments, we have a community, it's steady, the writers read and comment and argue with the rest of us . . . big plus.

So yeah, TD is a middleman that we like, and on top of all that, TD even writes it's own original articles.

(Further note: There are information middlemen we dislike or hate: they are the ones who do not link back to their sources, twist information, (or get it wrong), without apology, take credit for others works, refuse to critically think, tunnel-vision and conspiracy theory themselves to death, and other such things)

Re: Re:

The logical flaw here is not the availability heuristic, but confirmation bias. You have already decided you like Techdirt and dislike other middlemen, and must then invent reasons to justify what you already "know."

Your favorite middlemen are ruthlessly exploiting as many flaws in the human psyche as they can find, and you are part of that equation. They have convinced you that it is more valuable to put three pieces of someone else's expensive work next to each other than to do the work in the first place. They have convinced you that a bunch of people making mostly uninformed (but inflammatory) blather is more valuable than boring facts. They use base rhetoric to incite primal feelings of distrust of authority and righteous indignation to create an in-group as false as any in the Stanford Prison Experiment and you jump at the chance to join: they present you a guard's uniform and you cannot put it on fast enough. Then they explain to you that it's the prisoners' own fault that they are in prison and it is right that they be beaten. You parrot their rhetoric as if it were your own.

Re: Re: Re:

The logical flaw here is not the availability heuristic, but confirmation bias. You have already decided you like Techdirt and dislike other middlemen, and must then invent reasons to justify what you already "know."

Confirmation bias exists, but it's not responsible for everything you disagree with, hon. I don't always agree with the Techdirt perspective on what they write about, but I absolutely appreciate that they think before they write. That's why I'm here, and that's why most of us are here.

Your favorite middlemen are ruthlessly exploiting as many flaws in the human psyche as they can find, and you are part of that equation. They have convinced you that it is more valuable to put three pieces of someone else's expensive work next to each other than to do the work in the first place.

What expensive work are you talking about? You mean the 'expensive work' of parroting the RIAA, Congress, or whatever talking head is being quoted in the original 'news' articles that TD posts usually link to? And how is that not comparable to the 'expensive work' of getting enough education to be able to analyze what those talking heads are saying?

They have convinced you that a bunch of people making mostly uninformed (but inflammatory) blather is more valuable than boring facts.

So posts that pick apart misinformation are blather? And the misinformation is fact? Lolwhut?

They use base rhetoric to incite primal feelings of distrust of authority and righteous indignation to create an in-group as false as any in the Stanford Prison Experiment and you jump at the chance to join: they present you a guard's uniform and you cannot put it on fast enough. Then they explain to you that it's the prisoners' own fault that they are in prison and it is right that they be beaten. You parrot their rhetoric as if it were your own.

Did you take your meds today? Because your paranoia is showing.

Enjoy being the tool of someone else's agenda.

I think you're just upset that we're not your tools, and we don't follow your agenda. God, us self-thinking folks, we suck so bad...

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Says the person whose most recent triumph was collecting "favorite" posts on this site into yet another aggregation of aggregation. Sound and fury. We have redefined "yeah, what he said!" as "critical thinking." 1984 indeed.

Perhaps every year we should have a guest "editor" make a post identifying his or her favorite posts consisting of favorite posts.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Says the person whose most recent triumph was collecting "favorite" posts on this site into yet another aggregation of aggregation.

Actually, my most recent triumph was my four-year-old identifying x in an equation.

Sound and fury. We have redefined "yeah, what he said!" as "critical thinking." 1984 indeed.

If that's how you defined it, based on my post, then you obviously didn't read it. My simply didn't contain any critical thinking. I just pointed out that my favorite posts did. Also, 1984 was about the balance of power, not critical thinking.

Perhaps every year we should have a guest "editor" make a post identifying his or her favorite posts consisting of favorite posts.

That would be pretty neat, actually. Like a 'Best of 2010' post. Good idea, Anonymous.

Re: Re: Re:

Funny that you say this, because all of our favourite trolls (yourself apparently included) on this site are the exact opposite - they come to every comment section with the mindset that they must attack TechDirt at all costs.

And when they can't find a flaw in the story, they decide to go off on a random tangent (such as yourself) and make random ad hominem attacks (like you just demonstrated), usually with some variation of "Dirty pirates" or "Anarchists" or "Socialists".

A lot of readers here agree with a lot of what Mike says, but there is plenty that we will disagree with. The Anti-Mike's in the crowd, however, will disagree no matter what - hence why we can't take you seriously in the slightest.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

"You have already decided you like Techdirt and dislike other middlemen, and must then invent reasons to justify what you already "know.""

"They have convinced you that a bunch of people making mostly uninformed (but inflammatory) blather is more valuable than boring facts"

"They use base rhetoric to incite primal feelings of distrust of authority and righteous indignation to create an in-group as false as any in the Stanford Prison Experiment and you jump at the chance to join [ . . .]"

These are all ad hominem fallacies.
One thing I don't like about calling anything 'ad hominem' is that people tend to think about absolutely disconnected examples: "You are stinky, therefore you are wrong".

Ad hominems, the ones that we need to look at and avoid, are the ones that, in different circumstances, could be valid. But as stated, depend on the attack on the person.

Take the second post here. We have the booleans:
P = TD is uninformed blather
Q = Facts are more valuable than blather
R = 'We' have been convinced of the value of TD falsely
U = 'We' have been convinced of the value of TD

Forming (P^Q^U) -> R

There are also some things that are non-explicit that I believe most people would read:
S = 'We' are stupid
T = TD is inflammatory

(S^T) -> U
R -> S

Even if we take only what is intended, you have presented thus far no proof that TD is uninformed blather. That's the ad hominem there.
But then we have, in the non-explicit part, statement S. Ad hominem. Obviously when you see it.
The 'circular part' isn't a problem in this case because we have not established that R is necessary for S, (Or S^T for U, or U for R).

For that matter, you're also guilty of "guilty by association", (a form of ad hom, if you hadn't realized), by grouping with people who agree with TD. Which I wouldn't even look twice at, because I was arguing on 'their' behalf, even though I specifically distanced myself from the argument I was making, and because it doesn't matter here.

An ad hom of "guilt by association" follows:
Source A makes Claim B
Group C makes Claim B
Source A is from Group C

Just for people who like it stated clearly :)

Anyhoo, if you generally operate on the premise that everyone else is generally speaking, stupider than you, you may wish to examine the Dunning–Kruger effect.
The effect is usually stated as that someone with little skill will overestimate their own skill in an area, and underestimate more skilled people's, uh, skill.
I think it is better worded that people who do not examine their examination of their own skill will mis-estimate skill levels.
(And unskilled people are unable to properly examine their examination, and so . . .)
Indeed: "Dunning et al. cite a study saying that 94% of college professors rank their work as "above average" (relative to their peers), to underscore that the highly intelligent and informed are hardly exempt."
Now, unless that bottom 6% are really, really horrible, or the above 94% extremely uniform, the average is generally above 50% of the pop, and below 50% of the pop. So yeah, be aware of how that might play into your own ideas and you might learn a lot.

Anyhoo, the points are:
That you have made what appear to be ad hominem fallacies both in explicit and non-explicit arguments, given that nothing is backing them up that you have posted.
And that you may wish to examine your own arguments and prejudices/bias. I'm examining mine as well, and taking into account the possibility that I may be on the wrong side of the argument.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

That was a rather excessive analysis (which I stopped reading partway, by the way). The original post being analyzed could be analyzed in a much simpler way: it makes a wide array of assertions. In the absence of logos (no effort is made to support the assertions with facts or logic), the poster fills them with emotionally-charged terms in an attempt to win the argument by appeal to pathos. Sort of a brute-force approach to argumentation.

I should note one other thing, as well: simply being insulting to one's opponent is in the realm of pathos. Ad hominem is a defective (illogical) syllogism (logos) of the following form:
Opponent is [something] (fact)
People who are [something] don't make rational arguments (implied assumption)
Ergo opponent is wrong (conclusion)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

And also, IMO, examining other's posts for 'emotionally-charged' or 'realm of pathos' is generally useless because:
a) The guilty party very rarely realizes his mistake, especially when pointed out so shortly
b) It's a very common fallacy, and although it doesn't make an argument, it doesn't make any other arguments by that person weaker
c) It is occasionally valid. There are cases where questioning someone's motives or intelligence is valid.

With that in mind, I only argued for AC's ad hominem because he explicitly did not recognize it, and I hope to help him by explaining it throughly, and I hope, correctly.

Re: Re: Re:

Thank you for that wonderful display of pathos. Grossly lacking in logos (you only address one of the no less than six arguments made in the parent post), but certainly an admirable example of an argument made of pathos.

Isolation
Isolation represents a key component in the restructuring or indoctrination phase of most groups.
Isolation appears to be the most powerful of the social dynamics operating in radical group processes.

This practice protects members from the contaminating influences of the outside world.

Simultaneously, the isolated individual gets bombarded by cause-related information in the form of "literature" or lectures by the group's hierarchy.

Although some groups APPEAR to be vociferou consumers of information from such sources and public access television, shortwave radio, and the internet.the group's leadership CENSORS all of the information before disseminating it to group members.

As isolation increases, CRITICAL THINKING DECREASES
Without access to alternative information sources, members encode new belief systems. Group tenents never are challenged, only recited.
Platitude conditioning replaces reasoning processes.

Although the isolation process itself is not pathological, the end result IS.. The extent of the deprivation and isolation yields an individual who responds to the group mandate with no individual thinking or decision making.

group leaders actively discourage critical, self-contained thought.

PROJECTION

Stage 1. The group projects responsibility for its decisions and direction onto the LEADER. (Mike).

Stage 2. The group projects the cause for its perceived grievances onto some outside entity. (anyone who agrees with copyright laws, or laws in general). RIAA, MPAA, US Government, EU, Mike is an expert at this part of projection techniques..

Each group requires a singleauthoritarian leader, who assumes absolute control of all group functions and decision-making processes.

As members surrender critical thinking, they elevate the group leader to the status of absolute authority.

Members abdicate all decision making and critical thinking to the group leader.REALITY TESTING DOES NOT OCCUR

PATHOLOGICAL ANGER
Stage 3 of the lethal triad..

1. Isolation
2. projection
3. Pathological Anger
Collectively, group members see themselves as victims of an outside force.
As they project blame onto this entity, they grow emotionally volatile.

As their anger grows, group members believe they are in a position of "RIGHTEOUSNESS" or "JUSTIFICATION"

Because of their isolation, group members come into significant contact only with others who share their world view and emotional reaction to it.. (you see that here all the time).

They neither test nor challenge the group hypothesis and feel no sense of individual accountability.

So there you have it, I was paraphrasing, but you get the idea, and you can read it all yourself if you wish, just follow the link..

But you can easily see who Mike and TD and TechRights conduct their activities.

How they do it, and how it works, and especially how it stop critical thinking.. exactly what Mike is shooting for..

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Really?

are you really claiming that Mike is a Terrorist Extremist who has captured us all in his bunker for brainwashing?

really darryl? it seems you have crossed some magical dividing line and begun your descent into the dark valleys of total insanity. I am not too worried about hurting your feelings now, since you will simply write it off as my cult brainwashing. Gee, sure is a great way to avoid dealing with things.

Many industries agree with you:
"those are not under-served customers, those are Pirates~!"

Hey, whatever helps you keep the voices from screaming in your head or whatever other condition it at play here.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Mike links more to outside sources than his own, and Techdirt isn't the only, or even in the minority, of sites that link to their own previous articles on a subject. That's not some sort of psychological tool. It's just helpful.

Roflmao, the only people who see themselves as victims are the trolls, like yourself. As for the rest of us, we're not pathologically angry at the RIAA or any of those guys. Some of us even feel sorry for them.

Although some groups APPEAR to be vociferou consumers of information from such sources and public access television, shortwave radio, and the internet. the group's leadership CENSORS all of the information before disseminating it to group members.

When Mike blocks my Internet, I'll let you know. Until then, lolwhut?

As isolation increases, CRITICAL THINKING DECREASES
Without access to alternative information sources, members encode new belief systems. Group tenents never are challenged, only recited. Platitude conditioning replaces reasoning processes.

Darryl, this is a fairly good description of what's happened to you, not us. Are you Australian? It would explain how this happened to you...

Because of their isolation, group members come into significant contact only with others who share their world view and emotional reaction to it.. (you see that here all the time).

No, you don't see it here. First, no one here comes into significant contact with each other. For the most part, we don't even know each other's names, marital status, profession, location... Next, we're not isolated. We all live in an actual real world, where we live and interact with real people, most of whom are not Techdirt readers.

How they do it, and how it works, and especially how it stop critical thinking.. exactly what Mike is shooting for..

Because Mike is a super-villain? Oh, noes!!!

Actually, this blog is a part of the Floor64 business model, so it's more about money than some nefarious evil effort to make people feel better about pirating mp3s.

Re:

Regularly lately I see links in Slashot stories that link back here. Given the readership of Slashdot I can only assume this drives substantial traffic to this site

Slashdot does drive a decent amount of traffic, but significantly less than the sources listed above. But, yes, we're happy on those occasions when Slashdot sends us traffic as well.

More often than not, though, the link is to talk about a story, first reported elsewhere and re-summarized here. The link and the Slashdot story do not refer to any additional commentary Techdirt makes.

Hmm. Well, that usually depends on who writes the submission, so not sure about that, but in looking over the last couple of stories that did get onto /., I don't really believe your statements are accurate.

For example, just looking at the two stories that were on /. in the last week:

About the DHS domain seizures. Links to a number of primary sources, and only links to the Techdirt post where we analyzed DHS's argument.

In my experience, it's rare that /. will link to us *except* if the Techdirt post adds something to the story. So not really sure the basis of your claim.

This mutual-admiration society of blogs has formed a new core of Internet information middlemen. Techdirt and Slashdot occupy privileged positions in this new world of middlemen due in large part to their longevity and the inertia of popularity.

Inertia of popularity. Great phrase. If only there were anything behind it. I would suggest the next time you work hard for years to build something successful, ask how you would feel if someone without any knowledge of the situation claims your success is due entirely to inertia.

For a blog and a community that so often rails against and diminishes the contributions of (other) middlemen, I'm so often surprised at how well they are emulated.

Again, I believe you have your facts wrong. We have never said that "middlemen" as a whole are a problem. We have only suggested that middlemen who act as *gatekeepers* or *monopolists* who limit markets and limit efficiency are a problem. We're all for middlemen who are *enablers*.

Re: Re:

Here are 11 instances (all but one in 2010, I believe?) where Slashdot linked a Techdirt article, but did not seem to do so for the Techdirt-original content, and where they did not link the source from which the information being referred to came from.

In my experience, it's rare that /. will link to us *except* if the Techdirt post adds something to the story.

All Techdirt posts "add something" to the original story: a resummary, commentary, synthesis, etc. I don't and do not dispute this. In the below links, references in the slashdot article to anything beyond the original resummary are minimal. The slashdot reader is reading a summary of a summary of a summary of an event.

- - -

Link to a Techdirt article with little/no reference to original Techdirt content; Techdirt links to original story at NASAWatch and Bloomberg. No link to either source from Slashdot.

"TechDirt is reporting..." which is true, but Techdirt links to BusinessWeek as the source of the information that it is reporting. This slashdot article includes an excerpt from the Techdirt commentary, but still no link to the original source of the information on which the commentary is being made.

Two Techdirt links here in an article with minimal reference to original Techdirt commentary.
Origin link for the first Techdirt entry is a blog, which is itself a summary of a New York Times article.
Origin link for the second Techdirt entry is an opinion piece from firstamendmentcenter.org
No links to any non-Techdirt sources in the slashdot article.

"Techdirt has details..." Actual origin of the details, according to Techdirt origin links, are Slashfilm and Deadline, but the Slashfilm article also links back to Deadline. No links to Deadline from slashdot article.

Summary of a summary of a summary of an article originally from People's Daily Newspaper in China. As someone points out in the comments, the slashdot story links (only) to a Techdirt article, which links to a Christian Science Monitor article, which does not link to the People's Daily article.

The information about the lawsuit came from Techdirt origin link thenextweb.com. No link to from the slashdot article. Some Techdirt commentary is discussed in the slashdot article, but the link refers to the original news, not the commentary - the part of the slashdot about the Techdirt "deconstruction" of the patent is not linked at all.

I would suggest the next time you work hard for years to build something successful, ask how you would feel if someone without any knowledge of the situation claims your success is due entirely to inertia.

I said "in large part," not "entirely."

In searching for the above links, I noted that Techdirt has had a front-page link from a slashdot article more than 20 times since October. Even one link from slashdot is enough to bring most ordinary hosting providers to their knees. The network effect is working in your favor. You have clearly crossed a huge tipping point, yet you seem ashamed of this? Hell, if I were you, I would exploit it like crazy.

In fact, in my own life, I do (and I have far less inertia to exploit, but I have some). I can quantifiably tell you that the bonus in my current success due to inertia is about 100% - I do twice as well as colleagues that work just as hard as me and are just as productive solely because of reputation. Reputation is like money - it's much easier to make some when you have some already, so if I play my cards right I can widen that gap over time.

If "someone without any knowledge of the situation claims [my] success is due entirely to inertia" my response would be "not entirely, but about half of it." I will happily debate the fairness and justness of this. I have qualms about it. But I have no illusions that I'm 2X as productive as my colleagues and would not at all be hurt by the accusation that I'm not.

A "famous" guy (in a particular field) gave a talk recently that I attended. It was pretty good - about as good as most of the talks I go to. About 200 people showed up. If anybody but Mr. Famous were giving that same talk, 20 people would have showed up. So whereas my fame gives me a 100% advantage, Mr. Famous' fame gives him a 1000% advantage. I don't begrudge Mr. Famous his extra 180 attendees; I'm happy for him.

But now let's suppose Mr. Famous starts going around telling people that he has special insight about giving great talks - after all, he has 10X more attendees. Would it be impolite for someone to take Mr. Famous aside and suggest to him that maybe it's not his talks that are 10X better, or that maybe they are better, but not 10X - perhaps much less?

Stephen King claims to have published novels under the name Richard Bachman to get around a one-book-per-author-per-year limit imposed by his publisher. According to Wikipedia, in the introduction to The Bachman Books he also claims to have been trying to disambiguate skill and luck in his success. Wikipedia claims that sales of Thinner were a respectable 28,000 when published as Bachman, and 10 times that when people learned that Bachman was King. Though 28,000 sales shows that King has substantial raw skill, 90% of his success in terms of book sales is attributable to inertia. The book did not get 10X better when people learned who Richard Bachman was.

Since you asked and I answered as candidly as I could, how much of your current success would you attribute to inertia vs. how much would you attribute to just being more insightful/interesting/intelligent than other bloggers?

Re: Re: Re:

It's nice to see that other people can work out what Mike does for a living..

And the reporting on reporting on reporting, and often simply refering back to his own comments of confirmation of the "facts". I find to be a source of amusement, but what is amusing to me, would or could be dangerous to others who hang off Mikes every word.. and believe that Mike can do no wrong.

Its good that people are willing to try to track down the original source, it would be nice if Mike could take the time to do that..

The quality of his 'work' would massively improve..

But if all you are interested in is the number of page hits you get, you will end up feeding the lowest common level..

Which is exactly what you have fallen into Mike, you tend to play to the majority, disregarding any actual facts, and trading your reputation for a quick dollar.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

i think richard bachman = steven king was really all the publicity it got.

and the publishing world is all about inertia. if you look at the best selling authors from the last ten years you'll see the same people over and over again.

does steven king sell books because they are good or because he is steven king? that is what he was trying to answer as bachman (which is also a different writing style, so not just king as a different name)

did he answer it? who knows. doesn't change the fact that the best selling author lists for years now has had king, and nora roberts, and james patterson and danielle steele on it.

this is how the publishing industry works, more so than music. we are boring at what books we buy. someone will own all of tom clancy's books but never once try out a ludlum. read steven king? but not jack ketchem? (that is a crime by the way) people buy 'safe' books.

terry brooks on the NYT best seller's list (my favorate author, btw), no shock there. brian keene or wrath white? now we are talking.

they push the safe authors because we buy them. sure individually we all buy other writers, but as a whole these core writers sell millions of books each year.

what does that have to do with google? probably not much, but more to point out the example is bad.

and as i stated above (comment 67) i do think the 'inertia' metaphor is a good one and that mike simply took it wrong. more work = more mass = more inertia. less work = less mass = 15 minutes of fame.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

i think richard bachman = steven king was really all the publicity it got.

Yes, that's what I said. The Bachman books got a ton of publicity when the author's name was revealed.

does steven king sell books because they are good or because he is steven king?

If Steven King appeared out of nowhere with bestselling books, I'd say it was because he was Steven King. But since he took years, starting with short stories in magazines, to become popular, I'd say it's because he's an excellent writer who has built up a large audience.

that is what he was trying to answer as bachman

Yes, and Bachman was still popular, and wrote many books before people figured it out. Bachman was more popular than King was, before he was King. I think that might answer your earlier question, as well. :)

(which is also a different writing style, so not just king as a different name)

As someone who currently owns every single title ever published by Steven King/Richard Bachman, I disagree.

did he answer it? who knows. doesn't change the fact that the best selling author lists for years now has had king, and nora roberts, and james patterson and danielle steele on it.

And you think that being really good shouldn't result in being really popular or what? Only new authors should have best-selling novels, or only unpopular authors? I guess I don't understand what you're saying.

this is how the publishing industry works, more so than music. we are boring at what books we buy. someone will own all of tom clancy's books but never once try out a ludlum. read steven king? but not jack ketchem? (that is a crime by the way) people buy 'safe' books.

Safe doesn't equal bad, you know. In light of this fact, why is it bad that people repeatedly choose to purchase books by the authors that they know and love? That's like saying that people that love wool coats should spurn wool coats because cashmere is pretty warm, too, or that wool isn't really good as people say it is because it's popular. Neither coats nor literature are zero sum games.

they push the safe authors because we buy them. sure individually we all buy other writers, but as a whole these core writers sell millions of books each year.

Yes, but they also push unlikely breakout authors like J. K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyers, who also make the bestseller list.

what does that have to do with google? probably not much, but more to point out the example is bad. and as i stated above (comment 67) i do think the 'inertia' metaphor is a good one and that mike simply took it wrong. more work = more mass = more inertia. less work = less mass = 15 minutes of fame.

It's a bad example because Techdirt isn't the Steven King or the Stephanie Meyers of blogs. It's somewhere in between, and on the upswing, meaning no inertia.

glad you kept with king, i stopped after bag of bones (which was fantastic) mainly because i found small press horror.

and any object has inertia (sorry i am an engineer), even when it is accelerating. inertia works in both ways, makes it keep moving, but makes it harder to change velocity. (inertia as in science, not inertia as in laymen speak)

think of it like this. i read two posts on a site i've never been to. one of them has factually incorrect information that is pointed out in the comments, and no changes are made to the post. i am probably not coming back to that blog. their inertia was small.

but i go to techdirt, same situation, i come back. why? lots of inertia, we all make mistakes, etc. etc. why the difference in opinion? there is more work, more effort on both sides between me and techdirt (admittedly mostly with techdirt, i just read) i am willing to ignore an error.

same thing the other way. say i find some great scoop and post it on my no-name blog. i could submit it everywhere and it might get mentioned, but mostly will be ignored. i don't have any inertia.

but techdirt posts it, suddenly it is on slashdot, on giz, etc, etc. to further the metaphor, they have the inertia to get over the obstacles of trust and believability.

which is all really just academic. it was merely pointing out it was a good metaphor for how hard work will create something that keeps going, while a hard push could create a fad, but those don't last.

so, again, techdirt has lots of inertia, which is good! it represents a lot of hard work!

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

desperation and the regulators were written specifically to prove this point. he wanted to tell the two stories with a different voice, and used bachman to do it.

If that was his point, then he missed it, because it's obvious that they're by the same person, even if you remove all of the refs to one another. It's the same voice, both times. Or maybe I'm just 'tone-deaf'?

(inertia as in science, not inertia as in laymen speak)

Lol, I see how you were using it, but that's not how the OP used it. Oh, thanks for the author suggestion, btw. Never heard of Jack Ketchum, but will check him out. :)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

LOL, hope the crazy OP read that.

Remember, boys and girls, ad hominem attacks are perfectly OK if they are done by someone you like against someone you don't.

Another great example of inertia: Rose, being one of the dozen or or so named regular posters here has a posse in the other 11, +/- 10 Anonymous Cowards. She knows that her inertia with the group render her mostly immune to being called out on baseless attacks like this (calling me crazy and asking if I've taken my meds), whereas anybody else (especially someone outside the groupthink, like me) would get nailed to the wall.

Inertia is a fine way to exploit a defect in the human ability to evaluate value. You can use positive inertia to get more credit than anybody else would for doing the exact same (positive) thing, and take less of a hit when doing the exact same (negative) thing.

This seems to be the way of the world. As I said, I will happily argue whether it is fair, whether it's good for organizations and societies, and what you should do about it.

Malcolm Gladwell, in Blink relates that men were well-known to be better violin players than women for years. Orchestra tryouts confirmed it. Right up until they put a screen in front of the auditioners. Then, things changed.

Men's inertia gave them an advantage. I call this a defect in perception, but I doubt everyone here would. Some here would call it just a characteristic of perception, and insist that the best strategy is not to fight it, but to just accept it and deal with it.

Some would even say that fighting it is detrimental to society. After all, if the goal is to maximally satisfy listeners, and listeners were more satisfied when it was a man playing and they knew it, why should we make concessions for women? Hell, maybe we should tell female violin players that if they want to compete, they should get sex-change operations, or just get another job entirely since there are plenty of men who want to play violin that will gladly take their places.

It is one particular kind of attitude to argue that we should just get over it. I find it a little disturbing, especially when people start celebrating this "characteristic of perception," and calling anyone who suggests blind auditions a troll, but I can at least see the point.

But you cross another line entirely when you start arguing that men really do play better than women, that inertia has little or nothing to do with it, and that women should start to learn to play the violin the "manly way."

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

Remember, boys and girls, ad hominem attacks are perfectly OK if they are done by someone you like against someone you don't.

I didn't say that you're crazy because I disagree with you, or in response to your argument. I said you're crazy because you genuinely seem to be crazy and paranoid. Remember, insults in and of themselves are not automatically an ad hominem attack.

Or am I not allowed to make observations even after rationally refuting your argument?

Another great example of inertia: Rose, being one of the dozen or or so named regular posters here has a posse in the other 11, +/- 10 Anonymous Cowards. She knows that her inertia with the group render her mostly immune to being called out on baseless attacks like this...

And yet you're still able to post this comment? How am I 'mostly immune' to your response?

...whereas anybody else (especially someone outside the groupthink, like me) would get nailed to the wall.

This has more to do with the position of your comment than the background of the commenter. You're much more likely to be 'nailed to the wall' when your post is closer to the top, which it was.

Try waiting two days and posting crazy shit at the bottom, like this almost totally OT lit sidebar that another AC and I slipped into. No one will respond and then maybe you'll feel better.

This seems to be the way of the world. ... Malcolm Gladwell... Completely unrelated crap... Yada yada... ...cross another line... ...the "manly way.".

See? Crazy. Not because I disagree with you (I'm neutral regarding this part of your post), but because your post really seems crazy.

Re: Re:

mike sayz: Inertia of popularity. Great phrase. If only there were anything behind it.

i think there is something behind it, and i think that you are a great example of this.

think of it like this: there is a reason we refer to it as "15 minutes of fame." your 15 minutes are (supposedly) easy to get, but then, poof! are over.

now inertia (the physics thing) is based on mass. if i do something small, i am only going to be popular for a minute (or 15 in this case). but if i take my time, build up something grand, now i have a lot.

it is harder to stop a boulder than a billard ball, ask sysiphus.

so 'inertia of popularity' i believe is a good phrase that does have merit. it implies something more than a quick fix to the top, say like a one hit wonder. it emphasises the work that has already been done.

it does not imply that you have stopped working. Indeed if you weren't factually correct (except that nook article which still upsets me) and insightful we would stop coming.

and you stick with your game plan. think of Digg, they changed, changed in a way the users didn't like thinking that THEIR inertia would just keep everyone onboard. it did not. sometimes the rock can be stopped.

Re: Re: Re:

it implies something more than a quick fix to the top, say like a one hit wonder. it emphasises the work that has already been done.

Yes, you have to build momentum. But what this means is that somebody equally (or more) insightful for a day, a week, or a month, will probably be ignored. Do we celebrate this?

but if i take my time, build up something grand, now i have a lot.

No, it's more than that. It's that everything you do from that point onward is worth more than it would be otherwise. It means you are getting lots of credit and benefit now for work you did in the past (oh wait, I thought that was a terrible, terrible thing?)

Indeed if you weren't factually correct (except that nook article which still upsets me) and insightful we would stop coming.

Really, would you? How many times would an article have to be factually incorrect for you to stop coming? How much would the content of the site have to change for you to stop coming? My guess: lots.

think of Digg, they changed, changed in a way the users didn't like thinking that THEIR inertia would just keep everyone onboard. it did not. sometimes the rock can be stopped.

Yes, they're still the 131st most popular site on the Internet. That rock really pulled a 180. How many months has it been since it was basically universally agreed that Digg screwed the pooch? How many Internet businesses do you think would absolutely kill to have the traffic that Digg has even after they screwed the pooch? My guess would be all but about ~130 of them.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

i don't celebrate the loss of anything. but there is a very low signal to noise ratio these days in general. it is hard for anything to be filtered through. i have read comments on obscure sites that are way more insightful than paid journalists on major newspapers. was that comment lost because only a dozen people read it?

to turn it around, why shouldn't what i have done in the past make what i have done in the present worth more? (or less?)

one of the reasons i started coming to techdirt was because of the way the facts are presented along with the commentary. while there are times i haven't agreed with the commentary, the facts are there for me to draw my own conclusions. i brought up the nook article because the facts weren't presented correctly. now that is one article in a few years of reading (that i know) that did not have a correction. seems good to me. again, if that had been the second or third article i had read, i'd probably not be back.

so, if mike decided that the facts were irrelevent and he was going to make a monster out of *insert company here* his inertia would not carry me through that. there is a reason i do not read political blogs (admittedly i do spend a lot of time on fark politics threads, but that is different. i do that for the lulz). now, i would probably stick around with techdirt longer than i would say ars or giz, but again, i have more respect for mike (he has more inertia for me) than say jesus diaz.

i used to go to digg constantaly. it was more visited by me than facebook, slashdot and fark combined. now i go maybe once a month, if that. glad they are picking back up, but they lost me. they lost a lot of people. used to be front page articles had 1000+ diggs, now you only need 150 or so to get there. i wasn't saying that "OMGZ DIGGZ IS TEH DEADZ" i was pointing to a recent example of a group believing their inertia was enough.

a 180 lbs defender can take down a 250 lbs offense running at full speed if he knows how to hit him.

Re:

"While Techdirt itself may yet link back to the originating report (often through several links to earlier Techdirt articles which I have to believe is also an SEO effort)"

In my experience, Mike always links back to the originating story on a first post on the subject, then links back to previous TD posts in subsequent articles. Nothing wrong about that.

"it is nonetheless Techdirt that gets direct credit for reporting the story"

This is an opinion blog, not a reporting resource. If people choose to link back here instead of the original article, it's usually because they find Mike's commentary useful. Same with every other blog that gets posted to Slashdot or other aggregators.

""Fans" enable this by lazily linking stories where they first read them rather than where they originated, and the middlemen abet them by not rectifying this"

Quick question: how are Mike or other people working at TD meant to "rectify" links sent to a news aggregator?

"For a blog and a community that so often rails against and diminishes the contributions of (other) middlemen, I'm so often surprised at how well they are emulated."

As is stated in other replies, the "middlemen" criticised here are usually those who add nothing to the original product. The marketers, labels, lawyers and others who get between me and the music I wish to listen to or the movies I wish to view are just that - in the way. Sites like TD and SD add value, in the form of making stories easier to find and adding both editorial commentary (TD) and community participation (SD and TD). I'm still free to browse any primary news site for my information if I wish, and I can find my way back easily to original stories quite easily if I wish as well.

Search vs Referral

The fact that you're getting a lot of play from the social sites is great for you, but it also is the type of site that you've created - a dynamic site with regular updates. Updates resonate with someone and they share it with their friends, friends who are also likely to have the story resonate with them.

This means you've got a great site for "in the now".

It would be interesting to see if your historic stories (things you've written about months or years ago) - if the users who hit them today are coming from Google search or more personal referrals.

My guess would be that Google drives users to your older content while the social networks drive users to your most recent posts.

After all - when you want to look something up, do you ping your buddies and wait for a response, or do you just "Google it"? Personally I can't see myself ever searching for a website via Facebook (though I guess it's possible).

On the flip side, if you find a great topic of conversation, I bet you share it with all your buddies via your favorite social network.

One more note. I'm "facebooked out". It seems many of the people who made Facebook a part of their lives early on - also have moved on. Not sure what that means, if anything, for the future of social networks.

Re: Search vs Referral

Re: Search vs Referral

It would be interesting to see if your historic stories (things you've written about months or years ago) - if the users who hit them today are coming from Google search or more personal referrals.

That's a good question. Obviously, you're right that a lot of the traffic is to recent stories, but not always. StumbleUpon, for example, quite frequently will suddenly drive a lot of traffic to an older story.

Also, just this past week, we got a *TON* of traffic to a story from 2009 from Facebook, and I have no idea why. I asked around to see if there was any way to figure out where that traffic was coming from, and the answer was no. So it's a mystery to me, but apparently someone on Facebook with a ridiculous number of followers mentioned a story from 2009 (about ad blockers) and it drove an astounding amount of traffic.

I don't think so

I think that's not really true although you have your basis for that. People still most specially internet marketers want to see their site in google. If you cannot find your site on google search engine then it's pretty much a dead site and you don't want that. Although, facebook and twitter does a lot of great wonders when it comes to traffic still you cannot just focus on that because it's not enough still.

Google more effective for large sites?

I thing Google may drive more traffic for large, established sites like TD than small start-up sites.

Both large and small sites rely on their fan base to link to friends via email, social network, personal blogs, etc. However, large sites have the benefit of being on the radar- they are more likely to come up in casual conversation, the news and other media. Greater exposure means more Google searches by naive (in the scientific sense) people whose interest has been piqued. Small sites don't have this visibility, are are more reliant on traffic by non-Google referrals.

This is just theory though, so feel free to poke holes in it. Also at the very bottom of it all is the assumption that you have good content.

Re: Re: Dont sing it - - BING IT..

Re: Dont sing it - - BING IT..

"I have probably used Google 3 times in the past year, and that was only to see if it had a better search result than BING.. "

So, you admit that you had a completely free choice to use another search engine without penalty, you just chose not to exercise that choice. You also admit that you can, without penalty, use Bing instead of Google as your primary search engine.

Maybe you should read up on what a monopoly is, because that's a description of the exact opposite.

"But according to Mike, Bit-Torrent is a search engine, so there is no reason why I cannot go to a bit torrent site, and do a search on it for Techdirt, and im sure I will get LOTS (ie NONE) hits.. "

So... you're impling that because a site that searches for .torrent files won't pick up a site written in .html, that somehow proves it's not a search engine? Weird. You also make a rather stupid mistake in your very premise, of course - BitTorrent is a protocol, not a search engine.

Sometimes, I really do hope you're paid to write this crap. Surely nobody can be typing so many words to be so utterly wrong for free, right?

First of all, congratulations on this blog. I have found it by chance as a friend recommend it to me on Twitter and I'm glad he did.
I totally agree with you. ALthough Google is still a major player in the Internet and websites owe much of their traffick from it, it is also true that social media and interesting content can increase and diversify any site's traffick. As you say, having interesting contentis a must-have if you want your site to attract new visitors and to keep those users that already know you coming through to your site.

Facebook is unstable, unreliable

"and a Facebook page (which often fails to update for reasons not at all clear to us)"

Facebook seems to suffer from lots of known bugs, that they never address!
One of the more serious bugs occurs when I try to post a link to a youtube page, there is a 5% chance that the link will pull a completely unrelated youtube video instead, and facebook will - for some strange reason - change the link you entered to reflect the new unrelated video!

No matter how many times you go back, and remove and reinsert the same youtube link, facebook will take offense to it, and replace it with a completely unrelated video, again and again! It seems to be link specific, although I can't remember specific examples right now (none of them infringed on copyrights or were in any way controversial), but I've faced this problem with at least 4 videos in the past year.

Also, their status alerts seem to get messed up every once in a while! Sometimes the latest alert will appear along the bottom buried amongst the older alerts.

I'm quite horrified that facebook overtook google to become the most visited site on the net, to be quite honest!

Socially shared content is a good idea (like techdirt for example), since it is discussion based content, you get more information and discussion about a certain topic, than you ever would if you just read headline news on google!
However, facebook falls short in that regard, I don't think its as developed as it should be to handle this kind of responsibility!
My primary source is still igoogle, and unless I'm looking for videos of kittens in hats, or a dancing bear, I'm not likely to ever switch to social media for serious information. Search Engines companies remain in my opinion the driving force behind the internet, and even if google dies, search engines won't die with it. Yahoo will rise to take its place, and so on.

What is Twitter, anyways??

Oh, and maybe this is a sign of my old age (I'm only 30 though!), but I completely fail to understand the appeal of Twitter!

It seems to be more hype than anything!
I can understand celebrities using it to let all their fans know what time they had a bowel movement this morning (I guess..), but other than that, it seems to be quite useless!
The only time I thought "I kind of get it now!" was when Bill Gates used it to "communicate" with people (in less than 140 characters) over the Haiti earthquake efforts!

But short of that one time thing with Bill Gates, every time I read an article talking about twitter and its effects, it seems to always greatly exaggerate its appeal, clout and usefulness. I keep going back to the site, trying to find anything useful or appealing, and end up giving up each and every time.
It seems to be nothing more than vain and vague chit-chat with no real value!

Quite frankly, I think Twitter is to google, as Tabloids are to Newspapers: Full of junk, written in the simplest, most inelegant form possible, in order to cater to the majority demographic with the least attention spans!

Re: What is Twitter, anyways??

I use it as a news feed. I follow a number of news sources, who then post a link on Twitter when they post an article. I also follow some folks who irl-follow our Congress, which means I can find out what's happening there right away. Of course, there's also OMG Facts and Weird News... :)

Anyway, it's like the world's best 'newspaper', available at any time, with up-to-date news.

Re: Re: What is Twitter, anyways??

Their main website is unappealing and uninteresting, and I seem to always get lost in it: their search tool doesn't seem to do what I thought it would do!
I thought if I entered "Bill Gates", then it should lead me to Bill Gates' twitter account! (you would think)
But instead, it pulled up a bunch of entires that happen to mention "Bill Gates" written by a bunch of nobodies!
You would think they would at least put the official "Bill gates" account on top of the results!
I tried and I tried to find Bill Gates twitter from their home page, but I couldn't seem to find it, and finally just gave up!

I can understand the appeal of getting minute by minute news from congressmen - actually I'm very interested in that - but I can't seem to find my way to a single twitter account, short of searching the net, going through each congressman trying to find out if they have a twitter account, then get that account name, and then finally go back and search for that account name on Twitter, if I can get their stupid search tool to work properly!

I can certainly understand its usefulness for reporters and politicians and public figures, so maybe my opposition is mainly an innate hatred of the execution of Twitter, more than the idea itself!!

I think the main website should be completely redesigned, re-organized, with some big name accounts being promoted on the main website to drag you in. The last thing I'm interested in is seeing what a few million strangers are "tweeting" about. Facebook seems to do a good job of that, along with pictures, videos, relationships .. etc

But unless its a public figure I'm following, I still don't see the appeal. Everytime I go to the twitter website thinking "Maybe its about time I figure this thing out" I spend some time going from one account to the next, trying to find anything interesting, and finally giving up!

Quite frankly, I'm waiting for another company to take this same idea and execute it better. As far as Twitter is concerned, I'm not impressed.

But just out of curiosity, can you send me some links to some "interesting" twitter accounts that I can follow?

Re: What is Twitter, anyways??

My suspicion is that everyone or nearly everyone who produces any significant number of tweets (or updates on any type of social media) is a narcissist.

Personally I use it for my linkspam: posting links to various things I find interesting during the course of my day; before getting on Twitter this was usually done via IRC or IM to my friends. This is, of course, basedon the assumption that people find my opinions on what is interesting of value.

Re: What is Twitter, anyways??

"I can understand celebrities using it to let all their fans know what time they had a bowel movement this morning (I guess..), but other than that, it seems to be quite useless!"

You need to subscribe to better people, or at least avoid the more vapid celebrities you seem to be following... Other than Kevin Smith's brand of humour, I don't think I've ever read a tweet about someone going to the toilet, but I have gotten a lot of breaking news and useful information not immediately present elsewhere.

I follow numerous respected news sources including the BBC and The Guardian along with numerous other news sites. I follow various sites that use Twitter to give early warnings on system outages and bugs. I follow movie blogs that tend to have scoops hours before the mainstream press pick upon stories, and many blogs seem to get their Twitter post out before the RSS update.

Just because YOU haven't worked out how to use a tool, that doesn't make it worthless.

Re: Re: Re: Re: What is Twitter, anyways??

"Yet, you claim to be an expert in what's posted there? Interesting."

I NEVER claimed that. If you read any of my posts, you will see that I'm claiming total ignorance on Twitter!

"I follow numerous respected news sources including ..."
wow, I'm very impressed.
How do I find them? Send me a link or something! My post wasn't meant to mock, so don't get so defensive!
I'm genuinely asking for a way to find interesting twitter accounts to follow, and you responded by giving me your twitter resume!

Sorry if I come across as a little snarky, but you are loudly complaining about not being able to understand a site that millions of other people have worked out, while sitting in front of the planet's biggest source of information on how to do stuff. I find that annoying.

As for finding useful links, it's down to who you want to find. There's a search box, and a directory under "find people" or "browse interests". You can look at what people have tweeted publicly before following them, then you'll get instant updates whenever anyone you follow sends a tweet. Once you're following a few people you'll see retweets and mentions of other users you might find interesting.

sandbox

Also something that works wonders is backup.

Make bit by bit copy of the state of the machine right after a fresh install and when everything its ok, you just make a copy and store it in a DVD-R and reinstall that every year or when problems arise, do you ever wonder how internet coffee shops maintain their machines virus free?, that is how, also get a bootable disc OS different from the OS on the machine so you can boot from that disc and inspect the files from a different OS that probably won't be vulnerable to any virus inside that filesystem so if you ever need to salvage some files from the disk before installing something over it that is the way to do it.